June 1899 continued
Tried on clothes a good deal. Kind Ethel came over in the morning and helped me to pack. M and I met at Victoria. I brought a four wheeler crammed with luggage. So we came at last to Saint Pauls Cray Hill (their holiday home that year). Mother was very tired by the journey, but she is better today.
The summer has begun most appropriately at the beginning of our time here.
Out all day. Imo went to London. The buttercup field, beyond the garden is golden and perfect, and the woods are quite delicious with bluebells. Malcolm and George arrived at different times, George to tea and Malcolm at about 6:30. We are going to have dinner at 8:30 so as to have time for walks and suchlike before dressing.
Very hot out all day. Mother looks really better. Malcolm did not go up to London at all, it being the Queen’s birthday. God bless the Queen. We all drove to a lovely place called Scadbury Park in the afternoon.
There we walked like the people in Quinze Jours au Raincy.
Here is an extract from this book:
‘On a beautiful day in July, Madame was going with her eldest daughter to spend a day at Raincy accompanied by some friends. The day was raining and the poor child did not laugh at anything, it was very sad for her that she only knew this beautiful park by reputation and it had promised so much pleasure to explore it.’
Le Raincy is a prestigious commune in the eastern suburbs of Paris.
And we imagined we were Mrs Elton when she went exploring parts in the barouche landau.
Actually it isn’t Mrs Elton’s but her relations’ carriage. In the novel ‘Emma’ by Jane Austen Mrs Elton repeatedly refers to her sister and brother’s barouche-landau[2], which ‘holds four perfectly’ (Emma, II. xiv). A barouche-landau was an expensive four-wheeled carriage drawn by two horses, with two collapsible hoods – one for the front-facing passengers and one for the rear-facing passengers…In Emma Mrs Elton talks repeatedly about the barouche-landau in order to impress upon her neighbours how wealthy her family is and to employ an element of control over Jane Fairfax. ‘One of Merriam Webster’s definitions of the word carriage is “the outward manifestation of personality or attitude” (“Carriage”). It is no wonder, then, that Austen employs carriages in her novels to illustrate a person’s character. Austen, at times, pairs characters to show their opposing virtue and vice: Mrs. Jennings’s generous offer that “her carriage was always at Elinor’s service” (SS 294) is contrasted with Fanny Dashwood, who would not even ride in the same carriage with her sisters-in-law (248-49); John Thorpe, a braggart and a liar, does not compare well with Mr. Tilney, who is neither a flashy nor boastful driver (NA 157); and Willoughby and Colonel Brandon each drive considerable distances, one for personal gratification, the other for love (SS 318, 330–31, 337).’[3]
George went to Cambridge.
Hottest. I put on a muslin frock with much rejoicing.
By now Antonia will have known that she was almost 4 months pregnant with her first child but she does not mention it in the diary. Photographs of pregnant Victorians are rare but here is one of Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna in the same year.
Pregnancy advice is also hard to find however here is some from ten years later:
In ‘Preparing for Baby’, the midwife begins by stating that “as soon as a woman knows that she is likely to become a mother, it should be her sweet duty to order her life that her child may be born strong, healthy and beautiful.” She goes on to advise on “the essentials which should receive attention” – that is, food, clothing, exercise, fresh air, rest, sleep and “good surroundings”. Here are several of her recommendations.
‘Clothing should, of course, be warm but light, and should not be suspended from the waist, and there should be no pressure on any part of the body. Corsets must be dispensed with, as they cause harmful pressure on the heart and stomach.’
In 1899 pregnant women wore a maternity corset which contained lacing to accommodate the enlarging abdomen.
‘Try to cultivate pure, placid thoughts, remembering that “of all created things, the loveliest and most divine are children.”’[4]
Malcolm, Imo and I to church across a burning field but the church was dark and cold and dull. Malcolm, I went to the woods after lunch, read a little. Father and Mother went bicycling for miles in the evening.
Dreyfus is to be retried. Zola returns France and writes a wondrous letter on the situation.
M and I goodly to church. Family walk in the afternoon. The woods were lovely and we sat in the hot sun on a fallen tree.
Meg came home looking wonderfully well and very brown.
Helen and Beatrice came for the day. The last of the hot bout of weather.
I went to see Connie[5] in her sweet dwelling in Westerham (called The Cearne). Had lunch with her David[6] and stayed till after tea. They see right away to the south from the slope of the Chart where they have built their house and behind them, quite close, is the wooded hill. Connie looked quite well, wonderfully so.
The Cearne was built in 1895-6 for the influential English critic and publisher’s reader, Edward William Garnett (1868–1937), and his wife Constance Clara Black (1861–1946), a translator of Russian literature. The Cearne remained the Garnett’s home, and they on affectionate terms, when two years later, as a result of his wife’s infatuation with the Russian revolutionary Sergei Stepniak, Garnett began a lifelong liaison with the painter Ellen Maurice (Nellie) Heath who had been in love with Walter Sickert.
The Garnetts entertained several generations of writers at The Cearne, including Joseph Conrad, D.H. Lawrence and W.H. Hudson. Lawrence was a frequent visitor and many of his dialect poems, including the long ‘Whether or Not’, were written by the log fire at The Cearne.
Helen Smith, in her 2017 biography of Edward Garnett, writes of Lawrence’s first visit to The Cearne, in 1911:
“It was his first visit and he had to keep his wits about him: the house was isolated and not visible from the road. Trees thickened the darkness as the visitor followed a sharply sloping track; The Cearne stood beneath a steep, coppiced hill and it was not until he was nearly on top of it that he realised he had arrived. He made his way to the immensely solid oak front door and raised the knocker….“The guest Edward greeted was, at twenty-six, seventeen years his junior. Above average height, the young man was slight but wiry, with his hair, which had definite reddish streaks, parted to one side. He sported a rather scrubby moustache, but his eyes were his most arresting feature — blue and, according to David Garnett’s later description, ‘so alive, dancing with gaiety.’ ” https://www.haggsfarmsociety.co.uk/post/lawrence-and-the-garnetts
D.H. Lawrence described the remote enclave as “a house thirteen years old, but exactly, exactly like the 15th century: brick floored hall, bare wood staircase, deep ingle nook with a great log fire, and two tiny windows one on either side of the chimney: and beautiful old furniture.” https://4columns.org/banks-eric/an-uncommon-reader
In April 1912 Garnett provided Lawrence with a haven at The Cearne when he ran off with Frieda Weekley and was an outcast in English society. Lawrence’s poem, ‘At The Cearne’ commemorates this visit.[7]
A verse from ‘At The Cearne’ by D. H. Lawrence:
The listless beauty of the hour
When snow fell on the apple trees
And the wood-ash gathered in the fire
And we faced our first miseries.
July 1899
Lord and lady Macnaghten came to stay over Sunday.
George (Antonia’s brother) went with Mr Huxley to see Treves[8] who says that George must have the operation for appendicitis before he goes to New Zealand.
Annie came down for the day.
A letter from Antonia to Malcolm in July 1899:
My dearest and best, Meg has just gone off and will soon see you and tell you how much better I am. Claire says I have a ‘bon visage’ and I feel very well, but nevertheless I have stayed in bed all day and only mean to get up for late dinner so that my room may be aired and I am unable to eat more largely than is quite seemly in bed. Dear Claire has brought me an adorable cataplasmes (a poultice) all through the day. I have read a nice new book from Mudies and entirely finished a garment down to the buttons and loops. Meg has put roses and honeysuckle by my bedside. And everybody had been very kind to me and pitied my sad state a great deal. Meanwhile in the unfortunate hurriedness of your going this morning I don’t feel as if I knew very much what you have been doing all day. I know that you were going to say pretty things at Mr. Joseph Walton QC. And I hope you did make that speech, but it can’t have lasted all the day. And so what have you been doing all the rest of the time? It is a quarter past five now, so very soon you’ll be hastening away from the Temple and I do hope you’re going to arrive at Queensgate in good time for dinner. What is the good of being virtuous and clever if you are not punctual? Mr Joseph Walton is always punctual and that is why he has gone so well. I have written to his honour Judge Bacon[9] to tell him we are very sorry we cannot have dinner with him and that is the only other letter I have written. And now I’m going to say goodbye to you. I’m very glad you’re coming back tomorrow and I hope you will enjoy the dinner party and be a good host. Poor Meg looked rather tired when she started, but she will be cheered up by the dinner party and I hope she will be very very gay at the dance. Goodbye my dear, my very own, your A. P. S. Will you look at the mysterious wedding presents? The China box and card in the drawer in your desk and note the name and address of the shop inside the China box please dear.
From this I think we can deduce that Antonia was punctual person and Malcolm wasn’t.
July 1899 continued
Stephen Spring Rice came down to see George and broke his arm again on the way. Poor poor thing. He had to go straight back to London and will have to be operated upon and the arm probably will be wired this time. George went up to London with him in the evening, unfortunately it made his cold much worse. Mr Treves has fixed Thursday this week.
George had the operation on his appendix performed down here by Treves. Mr Huxley and the doctor came to help. All went as well as possible.
I’m not sure what Antonia means by ‘down here’ but it is quite possible that this operation was performed at their holiday home in Kent even though there was a hospital nearby. The wealthy had surgery done at home most of the time because the survival rate much higher there than in hospitals.
Antiseptic surgery; its principles, practice, history, and results. Cheyne, William Watson, Sir, 1852-1932. Wellcome foundation
This is the surgeon who performed the operation on George (probably at the Booth’s holiday home). His consulting room at 6 Wimpole Street was one of the most popular in England. ‘Treves had a particular interest in the condition known as perityphlitis. He operated on his first case on 16 February 1887, and later read a report to the Royal Society on the subject. He advocated the operative treatment of appendicitis, although he advocated delaying surgery until a quiescent interval had been reached. Note that in this first operation, Treves did not in fact remove the appendix; he merely straightened out a kink and then closed the abdomen,1 though his practice soon changed to the removal of appendices. He disapproved of the use of the term appendicitis. “One knows that the academical-minded have a great objection to this uncouth term ‘appendicitis’; it lacks precision, but it has found its place in the clumsy nomenclature of medicine and has been accepted by the public with an extraordinary amount of generosity”.
He was appointed Sergeant-Surgeon to Edward VII (1902) and to George V (1910). On 24 June 1902, 2 days before the date fixed for his coronation, Edward VII became acutely ill with perityphlitis. His physicians in attendance called for Treves and, after consultation with Lord Lister and Thomas Smith, he operated to drain the abscess. The king protested, “I must go the Abbey,” but Treves was adamant: “Then Sire, you will go as a corpse.” The King made a good recovery and was crowned on 9 August. Treves became known worldwide and was created a baronet in the same year. By 1901, Treves had removed a thousand appendices. Yet appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis claimed Treves’ daughter Hetty in 1900, despite his belated surgical intervention.
Treves has also found fame for the case of Joseph Carey Merrick (1862–90), better known as the Elephant Man. Merrick was disfigured by a congenital condition that until recently was thought to have been due to neurofibromatosis, but was probably Proteus syndrome.5 He had been exhibited as a freak in an empty shop opposite the London Hospital in Whitechapel Road by Tom Norman, an entrepreneur acting as his agent. Treves was appalled by Merrick’s treatment, and after meeting him presented Merrick to the London Pathological Society at 53 Berners Street, Bloomsbury, on 2 December 1884. When Merrick returned penniless in 1886 after touring Europe, Treves took him into a vacant room in the London Hospital in Bedstead Square and treated him for exhaustion, malnutrition, and bronchitis, overseeing his treatment and spending time getting to know him. When Merrick died in 1890, his remains were cast in plaster, specimens were taken, and Treves dissected the body.’ [10]
Mr Huxley came to George to dress his wound and was quite satisfied with him. Stephen Spring Rice’s operation. We heard that all went well.
I went to London. George had his first solid meal of fish.
[2] Here is an extract from Emma: “My dear Miss Woodhouse, a vast deal may be done by those who dare to act. You and I need not be afraid. If we set the example, many will follow it as far as they can; though all have not our situations. We have carriages to fetch and convey her home, and we live in a style which could not make the addition of Jane Fairfax, at any time, the least inconvenient.—I should be extremely displeased if Wright were to send us up such a dinner, as could make me regret having asked more than Jane Fairfax to partake of it. I have no idea of that sort of thing. It is not likely that I should, considering what I have been used to. My greatest danger, perhaps, in housekeeping, may be quite the other way, in doing too much, and being too careless of expense. Maple Grove will probably be my model more than it ought to be—for we do not at all affect to equal my brother, Mr. Suckling, in income.—However, my resolution is taken as to noticing Jane Fairfax.—I shall certainly have her very often at my house, shall introduce her wherever I can, shall have musical parties to draw out her talents, and shall be constantly on the watch for an eligible situation. My acquaintance is so very extensive, that I have little doubt of hearing of something to suit her shortly.—I shall introduce her, of course, very particularly to my brother and sister when they come to us. I am sure they will like her extremely; and when she gets a little acquainted with them, her fears will completely wear off, for there really is nothing in the manners of either but what is highly conciliating.—I shall have her very often indeed while they are with me, and I dare say we shall sometimes find a seat for her in the barouche-landau in some of our exploring parties.”
[3] https://jasna.org/publications-2/persuasions-online/volume-40-no-1/ewing/
[4] http://teainateacup.wordpress.com/2013/06/22/pregnancy-in-1910
[5] Constance Garnett, an early and very influential translator of Russian literature.
[6] Connie’s son David Garnett.
[7] https://www.evmt.org.uk/assets/evmnews_i26_2012.pdf
[8] Sir Frederick Treves, baronet (1853–1923) became a Full Surgeon in 1884, at 31 years of age.
Antonia and Mary 